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CarMax

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ryanZ4
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CarMax

Post by ryanZ4 » Sun Apr 27, 2008 7:24 pm

This doesn't have to do with my Z4, but rather my Mustang Gt. I wanted to know what some of you guys in the U.S. think about this:

I purchased a 2002 Mustang GT from Carmax about a year ago. It's been a decent car with hardly any problems, none mechanical, in the year that I've had it. When buying my Z4, I decided to sell it. Carmax gave me the best offer of any of the dealerships that I had been to, buy about 3,000 dollars. I thought this was somewhat odd, and I had a friend at a local dealership go over the car. He used a paint meter on the car, and apparently the entire car had been repainted at some point in time, except for ONE front quarter-panel of the car. Now obviously this would lead me to believe that something had happened to the car that had made it need to be painted, but when I purchased this vehicle from Carmax, they gave me a clean CarFax report, and said nothing was wrong with it. They told me that upon transporting the vehicle from another dealership to my local one, the front bumper scraped the ground coming off of the truck, so they did a paint "touch-up" on the bumper. No worries right? So now I'm stuck with this car, and I was going to use the quote CarMax gave me as a bargaining price with other dealers. But now no dealers will give me anything near what the car is worth because of the paint-work that was done to the car, that did not show up in the suspicious CarFax report. What should I do? People have had this problem before that I've read about, who have taken the cars back years later and demanded all of their money back, or they would take the dealer to court. I can't get what I want for the car, but if CarMax didn't know the car had been repainted, and I told them, I'm wondering if they could possibly say we didn't know, and now we won't give you the amount we first offered you for the car. Any suggestions?

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Wondermike
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Re: CarMax

Post by Wondermike » Sun Apr 27, 2008 8:05 pm

If Carmax is the best offer, can't you just sell to them, or have I missed something?

Also, are you certain about the re-painting, it seems odd to repaint all apart from one area, might as well do the lot. The paint thicknesses might be all over the place, but can it have come from the factory like that?

ryanZ4
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Re: CarMax

Post by ryanZ4 » Sun Apr 27, 2008 8:09 pm

The paint meter ranges from 3.5 to 4.5 on factory domestic paint thickness. My right quarter panel was a 4.0. The rest of the car was 10.5-11.0. It was a really good paintjob, but most DEFINITELY not factory. The reason I ask is because I wanted to use CarMax as a bargaining chip to try to get a little more than they were gonna give me for it from someplace else. Didn't know if I could say hey, you guys f***ed me and didn't tell me about this. I could be driving a wrecked car that was never reported. And I KNOW they use these meters. All dealers do, and CarMax is a BIG dealer.

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Wondermike
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Re: CarMax

Post by Wondermike » Sun Apr 27, 2008 8:11 pm

I see. Maybe they will say it was fine when they sold it, and you had it repainted yourself. Hmmm. Can't you try and get a trade from somewhere else without mentioning Carmax, or use their valuation without sating anything about the paint?

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Re: CarMax

Post by ryanZ4 » Sun Apr 27, 2008 8:28 pm

Thats the thing. When I take it to other dealerships, they USE the paint meter, and come back and say, hey man, dunno if you know this, but your CarFax is clean but your car has been totally repainted minus 1 quarter panel. Very suspicious and therefore we can't give you full value for the pure fact that we will be obligated to tell potential buyers about it, and it scares a lot of people away. It would be nice if I could get CarMax to give me the full value that I paid for the car for not telling me about this. You'd think with the reputation they have, and the amount of money they could throw away, keeping their customers happy would be something that they would jump to do. It's very hard to think that such a huge company that buys and sells tons of cars, and supposedly goes over them with their 100 point inspection, would have missed something like this.

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ay8306
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Re: CarMax

Post by ay8306 » Sun Apr 27, 2008 11:42 pm

Your better off selling it direct either on e-bay or via Craig's List. Delaers only buy at wholesale - end of story (if the dealer is offering a big trade, I guarantee he is screwing you over on the price of the new car). You will always get a better price selling direct, especially on a desireable car like a Mustang GT. This time of year it will sell easily, and you can give the buyer the clean CarFax report without bringing up the repaint issue at all. Hell, for all you know, it could have been repainted before it was ever sold as new (maybe it was damaged during transport, or maybe some punk keyed it on the dealer lot).

One potential problem though. I have heard that sometimes CarFax can be slow in picking up problems. If someone were to pull a current CarFax, it may show up a wreck that occured right before you bought the car.
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Re: CarMax

Post by epbrown » Sun Apr 27, 2008 11:57 pm

It seems the only thing to do is sell the car to Carmax and use the money towards your next purchase. There doesn't appear to be another viable option.

Carfax, btw, is a crap shoot. Lots of states don't report accidents to any sort of database (IL doesn't, and Carfax was lobbying them to) so in lots of states your car could have all sorts of damage and you'd never know. It's good for following a car's ownership history, but I wouldn't count on it for much beyond that - it's no substitute for an inspection by someone knowledgeable.
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WaZZZZman
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Re: CarMax

Post by WaZZZZman » Mon Apr 28, 2008 1:04 am

Your CarFax report should be as clean as it was before. I really doubt you will get anywhere trying to get them to give you the money back. Probably not worth the effort. Just suck it up and use the clean CarFax report to sell to someone else. I agree CarFax tries to give a good guide as to the condition of the car, but many things never get reported and some dealers can get around it. There is no substitute for just doing a very good job of pre-inspection by yourself or a reliable mechanic. I spent weeks inspecting and driving and traveled over 2 states until I found the car I bought. In those travels I found many cars that CarFax had no bad history on that were Bondo kings. :evil: Usually when I pointed out the parts that were supposed to be metal and were plastic the price started to fall. But I never took the bait. The one I got is as close to a cherry as I could find.Image

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JBZ4
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Re: CarMax

Post by JBZ4 » Wed Apr 30, 2008 3:04 am

Lessons learned: I put my Z4 up for sale, buyer comes to look at it and is happy it is so clean and pristine. Asks me if had ever been in an accident and what owner I was. I tell him no accidents and I was the second owner. I tell him to don't take my word pull a CARFAX and check it out. Well the buyer pulls the CaRFAX and finds I am the fourth owner and the Z4 had been in a minor accident. Now I pulled the CARFAX two years earlier and the Z4 was clean as a whistle. Buyer buys the Z4, end of story (yes I saw his CARFAX) . I felt like a idiot and learned an important lesson. Fine print I believe on CARFAX is they are only liable for one year out. Moral of this story, CARFAX is not 100 percent accurate. I did write to CARFAX after I sold the Z4, they wanted to investigate. The car was gone and did not want to go through the hassle of documenting the whole episode. Good Luck, JBZ4

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